No, Starship Troopers Is Not Brilliant Satire

Okay thanks, I can understand using cliches to make satire in case of a movie like Scary movie. But Scary movie was a comedy satire. With Starshoop Troopers, there wasn't near as much humor in the cliches from what I remember, and everyone is playing it straight and taking it seriously it seemed.

As for military propaganda I felt it was only satirizing that for mostly the first half, or I felt it could have done a better job at satirizing it maybe. Perhaps it just need more humor, like The Naked Gun as far as satires go, or it needed more of an edge, like Dr. Strangelove. The movie just doesn't push much in either direction for me, so it feels like it has a very neutral effect, if that makes sense.

Noooo please No.

Well Scary Movie was used, so I thought that was more on a Naked Gun type level of example.

Perhaps better examples would be Dr. Strangelove and Natural Born Killers. NBK was a much more dark satire, and that would be another direction to go in as well. But the movie wants to stay in the middle and just be neutral the whole time it feels like to me.

But when we are talking about the military propaganda in the movie, we are talking about how the army makes it seem much more luxurious in the recruitment section right? Or was there more propaganda than that?

I like to discuss satire because I took a class in college simply called "Satire."

And most associate humor with satire because that's become the most common outlet, but the origins of satire was simply to disguise free speech (particularly criticism) as something else: a children's story, fable, play or fairy tale, etc., in times or places when or where it was a crime sometimes punishable by death to openly criticize Kings, Queens, rulers, religion, the Church, religious doctrines or political systems.

So satire doesn't necessarily have to be humorous. But its inferences have to be, on some level, recognizable to get the criticisms across.

Sci-fi itself is almost a form of satire (although its message may range from criticism to warnings) as it often is using the realm of the future or other worlds to comment or provide lessons on issues of the past or present. And there's lots of sci-fi that is pure satire that doesn't involve comedy (or uses it sparsely) - movies like 1984, Planet of the Apes, Brave New World, Brazil, V for Vendetta, etc.

Okay thanks. But what does having those cliches in mean to say about the military propaganda? If the movie is using satire as a message, then what is the message?

Ahh...the hidden message, that's for you (the viewer) to find out. Can't tell ya, you have to watch it again.

I think there's several messages, but one, as I pointed out before is that there's a very thin line between fascism and patriotism, and the perspective of that line depends on which side you're viewing it from. (Starship Troopers seems to like to play with this concept throughout).

The article that Rules linked pointed out how we don't necessarily view Reifenstahlesque celebratory scenes of nationalism as pro-fascist as long as they are applied to the side we're rooting for, but when applied to an enemy (when the symbolism is clear) we see it as fascist propaganda.

A theme of Starship Troopers was all about propaganda - and those things that we may view as typical western, American or Hollywood cliches may be just as much fascist propaganda as what we deem to be the propaganda from an enemy. It all depends on how you're looking at it (and I think the film played with this as well).

The difference between fascism and patriotism may simply be a matter of perspective. And the concept of who's an "enemy" or not may depend only on what's advantageous for "our side" at the moment... or what information we are fed to define who our enemies are.

But I feel that none of characters in the movie acknowledge this theme very much. I mean in a movie like Born on the Fourth if July for example, the main character thought the military was going to war for the wrong reasons, and acknowledged it. Not that this movie is trying to be Born on the Fourth of July, but I didn't think that the characters really acknowledged any of these themes that well from what I remember.

In the end, they just wanted to kill all the bugs. Now maybe things like they proud patriotism we see, like in Top Gun is the propaganda, but then we don't really care about the characters, cause they are manipulated by the ideals that the movie is trying to acknowledge, and don't seem to ever grow or learn much.

Plus I think if you want to do a movie about themes of propaganda, patriotism and fascism, that having the movie about trying to stop your planet from being invaded by a bunch of bugs is the wrong movie for it. Because the insects want to do nothing but take over the galaxy, it then becomes a survival story more than a military propaganda story, and I think that another antagonist besides these galaxy hungry bugs, might have been more fitting.

That's part of the social satire in Starship Troopers though.
The reason for war in the very first place is wrong... none of the characters see it.
Then, after Buenos Aires is destroyed, none of the characters even thinks twice as to why.
And as you said, there is also no arc with the main characters.


That's the social satire on today's society.


The populous are puppets... and believe what they are told to believe.


Also, the Bugs never wanted to take over the galaxy.
They were just procreating as they have done for millennia. Humans took a personal offence to that and create propaganda to get the populous to go to war.
Again, more satire.

__________________

Okay maybe that was my problem then, is I didn't care about the characters, or find them interesting, cause they were puppets. But they don't even come to any realization that they are puppets either.

Plus the movie feels hypocritical cause it wants say war is wrong, but then after the bugs destroy Buenos Aires, it isn't wrong. So which is it? I just don't know what it was trying to say. If everyone agrees that it's time to go to war after Buenos Aires was destroyed, then what the are saying is "it turns out, this war has not been progaganda all along and that our government was right to pick a fight". It feels that they can't make up their minds.

Well, Born on the Fourth of July is a true story about someone who lived through the propaganda and then saw through it and then opposed it. In Starship Troopers, nobody gets it. They're not supposed to. The way society has become structured in that future shows that there's actually a military social class that ranks at the top of the ladder. If you don't relate to the characters, then you're probably seeing the message on some level (or, if you do relate to them, then you're probably channelling your inner 11-year-old and getting a thrill from the special effects and Johnny Rico's heroics!)

Part of the message is how easily led people are through the way they are taught, conditioned or given information.

I still don't know if this is a plot hole, goof or a carefully placed clue --- but everyone knows it would take millions or billions of years for an asteroid to go halfway across the galaxy (unless it was travelling much faster than light somehow). If it was launched as an attack, then such an attack would have to have been conceived before mankind even existed as a species. Yet, in the movie, the reason given the public for going to war with the Arachnids is this asteroid they allegedly launched from the other side of the galaxy that hit Earth and destroyed Buenos Aires. Was the asteroid just a natural disaster used as a "false flag" event?

But I think in order to explore a theme, in a movie, at least one of the characters has to 'get it', in order for theme to be explored. That is the purpose of having characters, so each character, can have a different take on the theme, they are all dealing with.

If every character acts the same, then they are all the same and there is nothing to differentiate them. It's just more interesting when characters have different takes and beliefs on the theme, rather than everyone having the same opinion.

Even the satire would probably be better, if characters had different views on the theme.

I've always loved the film and when I was younger the satirical aspect flew over my head, but I get it now. It's basically a satire on war-time propaganda and thinking within the context of Sci-Fi.

That's the point. Each new generation is typified as the ' Me Me Me generation'. Shower scene - they're all asked what they want to get out of killing the other side. Responses are pretty much all self absorbed needs, which are gifts offered up in the recruitment campaign, except for Mr Perfect teeth privileged guy who wants to do his 'duty for his country'.

Oh okay then. So if the movie is about humans creating propaganda to go war, then why was it written that the bugs wiped out Buenos Aires? Why not write it so that the government secretly wiped it out to pin it on the bugs, since it's about creating propaganda anyway?

Hey? Blaming the government would recruit pawns to wipe out the other side? How does that work?

Who told you the bugs wiped out Buenos Aires? Think about it.

It's been a while since I've seen the movie but I don't remember them saying the humans wiped it out to pin it on then. So there is no confirmation of it, is there?

Yes it's said in the movie that the bugs wiped out Buenos Aires...but the important part is who said it?

I think you should take what you've read here today, and go back and watch ST. I think you will see a different movie than the last time you watched it.

Okay thanks. It's hard to watch it again, cause I really didn't enjoy it back then, and never wanted to watch it again. But I might give it a shot then.

I asked my friend who is a fan to help jog my memory and he said that they never confirm that it was the government framed the bugs. I think they should at least explain it. Sometimes it's good to be ambiguous but I think for a movie about propaganda there perhaps should be confirmation rather than just saying it could have been them, but not confirmed.